What’s up, Gen Pop, it’s Bill from the Free Ballin’ Football Collective? We unfortunately don’t have a post-Super Bowl podcast for you this week. Frankly, the four of us are exhausted from having to listen to our Patriots fan friends scream “YOU HATE US CUZ YOU AIN’T US” over text message 50 times a day all week. It’s been a tough week for your boys, and our patience and relationships with some of the Friends of the Pod are being tested because of outright Massholery!

There is also little for us to uncover about the game that hasn’t been talked about ad nauseum. The Falcons (and more specifically NEW 49ers interim coach Kyle Shanahan) choked down the stretch. I will never for the life of me understand why the fuck you stop running the ball. I joke a lot on the podcast about Andy Reid PTSD, but that is exactly what watching the second half of the Super Bowl was for me. The Patriots did what few teams can do—they never panicked when they were being gutted for the first 2.5 quarters because they’ve been in these ultimate games so damn often over the last 16 years. While we missed some much needed Patriots Schadenfreude this year, we will once again take solace that one day, in the next 2 or 3 years, the wheels will fall off of the Patriots bandwagon and these dipshits will skulk back to their cabins in western Mass to bang their cousins.

With that, we enter the long, dark NFL off-season, where people with kids, like me, find out what it is like to once again spend time with your child on Sunday afternoons. It also means that the Free Ballin’ Football Podcast will be going on a hiatus. I know, I know… what’s it going to be like not finding out what Josh thinks of all the Ravens off-season moves in minute detail? What’s it going to be like not following along as Tim and I get progressively more drunk during each week’s recording? What are you going to do without Nick’s random Ohio college football references as he tries to keep all of us on track? Well, the only thing I can tell you is that we’ll be back periodically during the off-season spitting our hot takes for all of you. We’ll probably do a show around the NFL Draft, we’ll come back to do a general mid-off-season check in on NFL news. We’re also thinking about doing a few fantasy football specific podcasts during the late summer as we all gear up to EVISCERATE our respective fantasy leagues. I promise, the off-season always seems to drag on forever, but we’ll be back before you know it!

As we close up shop for the season, I find myself taking stock of what the Podcast has been like over the last year. We’ve definitely gotten better. I just think it’s been such a blast getting together with the other guys each week and talking shit. Personally, it’s been a needed rage outlet for dealing with the likes of Nelson Agholor and Dorial Green-Beckham. So the off-season will also be a time where we figure out what we can do better (give us suggestions on Twitter or send ‘em to [email protected]). I’d also be remiss if I didn’t give a HUGE shoutout to all the guys at DFO and specifically Darkest Timeline Zack Morris for bringing us in and giving us a chance to reach all of you. I hope you’ve enjoyed following along because we’ve loved being here and we’ll continue to put out some blogs in between our off-season podcasts.

The season might be over, but just remember, you always gotta BALL OUT!

Follow us all off-season long on Twitter!